Chamber and committees

I, too, thank Jim Fairlie for, and congratulate him on, bringing this debate to the chamber. It is really important for those of us who represent areas that are affected by the closures—the Cumbernauld office is one of the offices that could close, and Cumbernauld is in Central Scotland, which I represent.

I have spoken to OVO staff in Cumbernauld. They took something of a risk when they spoke to me, because they told me that they had been contacted by the company and told in rather threatening tones not to breathe a word about the matter to anyone. That is an appalling way to deal with people. Those people spoke to me on the basis that I would not reveal who they were—and, of course, I will not. However, that should never be the case, and that left a sour taste in my mouth.

We have already heard a bit of the history of OVO and SSE and about how we came to be where we are. I have no real confidence in people being told that there will be no compulsory redundancies—I simply do not believe that. When companies close offices and create hubs, people tend to go whether or not they want to. The Cumbernauld office is the nearest office to the so-called superhub in Glasgow. It might be said that that is the most convenient place, but it is not convenient for everyone. Not everyone can get to wherever that hub is. It does not suit some people who work part time whom I have spoken to—they will sometimes spend more time travelling than at work. That simply does not work.

I think that Jim Fairlie rightly mentioned the move to digital contact centres. I have experience of that. When the company that provided my electricity and gas at home closed down, I was switched to another provider—not OVO—and now I am on a tariff that means that I cannot speak to anyone. If I want to find out anything, it is impossible; I cannot speak to someone on the phone—I have to go through an app or a website. It is utterly ludicrous. I consider myself to be someone who is able to deal with most things, but I want to speak to somebody. Elderly customers who are perhaps not as tech savvy as I am will not be able to do that.

Not at all. That is the way that I see it, and the figures bear that out. Between 2012 and 2019, the made affirmative procedure had been used only nine times, but between March 2020 and 1 February 2022, it was used 146 times. When I described that as becoming the norm and John Swinney said that that was “ludicrous”, I was right and he was wrong.

At times, the situation has become ridiculous. Quite often, Parliament has been voting on things that are no longer in force. It has been a case of, “Now you see it, now you don’t.” It is like the Derren Brown school of legislating. The ridiculous Manchester travel ban is a good example. Nicola Sturgeon had come to her senses before MSPs could tell her to wise up. Had the matter come to us in advance, we could have spared the First Minister a needless spat with Andy Burnham.

I thank the committee clerks, all our witnesses and the convener for helping us to produce an excellent report. Sir Jonathan Jones QC told us that using the no-scrutiny route had become a habit here and at Westminster, and that it was a bad one. I agree. Dr Ruth Fox of the Hansard Society reminded us that the tension between Governments wanting to push the boundaries and Parliament wanting to keep them in check was as old as the hills. Professor Stephen Tierney agreed with me that, if we give Governments an inch, they will take a mile, which is what has happened. Morag Ross QC was of the view that rapidly changing legislation can become confusing. That led to our recommendation that legislation should be consolidated so that it can be easily read.

To use the no scrutiny route, all that a minister has to do is to decide that something is urgent. He or she does not have to say why; they do not have to justify that decision. The University of Birmingham Covid-19 review observatory said that

“the urgency requirement is not an effective constraint”

on the use of the made affirmative procedure. It said that the use of the procedure should be justified, to ensure that all such Scottish SIs are treated as exceptional. The committee agreed with that.

The committee is clear that if ministers think that something is so urgent that they feel that they must legislate without the normal checks and balances, they need to say why, and that if the committee disagrees, the matter should be brought to the chamber. If such a matter is to be debated, it should be open to all members to contribute.

This Government has been ramming through legislation at will without scrutiny on a weekly—sometimes daily—basis, and that has to stop. We are long past the stage at which Governments need to legislate at a pace that might be justified in wartime. I would argue that we could have scrutinised every piece of legislation prior to it coming into force. We certainly should be doing that from here on in. The committee makes just that point.

I am in my second spell on the DPLR Committee. My first was as convener, and members might be forgiven for thinking that I earned a second stint because my chief whip does not like me, which might well be true. However, I actually made the schoolboy error of telling him how important the committee is.

The DPLR Committee is the gatekeeper. We see everything, including the tricks that the Government is up to, although a committee report would never use such a phrase. However, that is what the inquiry was about. In layman’s terms, the inquiry was about the way in which the Government has been making law without Parliament first scrutinising and voting on it.

Will the Deputy First Minister give way?

The problem is that we do not have enough ferries and that those ferries that we have are too old and so keep breaking down. That lies at the door of CMAL. A report from a previous committee of this Parliament said that CMAL should be scrapped. When will the minister act on that?

The latest bombshell from Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd is that cables on one of the ferries that it is allegedly building are too short and will have to be replaced. The First Minister will be familiar with the ferry, because it is the one that she launched in 2017. How much extra will it cost, and how long will the delay be?

If the budget is so good for local government, can the cabinet secretary name any councils that are not having to put up council tax?

I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement and for the generous tone in which she delivered it.

The statement described a “new beginning” for ScotRail, but the only thing that is new is that ScotRail is coming under new ownership. There has not been a vision since the year when Michael Matheson announced it. Jenny Gilruth is new to the job, so it is not her fault, but it sounds as though she wants us to help her to create that vision. In the spirit in which she delivered her statement, I am more than happy to help her with that, and to join her in genuine cross-party talks. However, if we are going to get that right, I gently suggest that those talks need to be regular discussions—not just the occasional half an hour. I agree with her that we all want the same thing, so we need to join up across the chamber.

She made the mistake of mentioning East Kilbride. If she wants to have a look at the plans for the East Kilbride line, she will discover that, yes, it is going to be electrified, but she will also find that the plans to dual that line for its entire length have been scrapped. Her predecessor offered cross-party talks to discuss the matter further, so she might want to take that forward.

In the time that I have left, I ask the minister for her view on fares. If we want to get people back on trains, the vision will need to include lower fares. What is her view on that?

What is the minister’s view on there being no compulsory redundancies? Does she think that that is a good thing or not? Does she want to get train services back to pre-pandemic levels or does she not?

Mr Sweeney makes a very good point. Too often, such changes are decided between public bodies such as Transport Scotland, councils and the police, and the public do not get to hear about any of it. It is worth highlighting that point to the lead committee.

I am quite astonished that the minister and her official have just confirmed that there is no limit whatever on what councils can charge for a licence. That will frighten the life out of businesses in Scotland.

Scottish Chambers of Commerce and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce—Glasgow is one of the cities in which the levy could be introduced—say that the levy should be scrapped or at least put on hold while we recover from the pandemic. Have you considered doing that, minister?